This might be a little left of centre for blogjune as my subject matter – Libraries of my childhood in Sixties and early Seventies in Brisbane (yes, last century!) – is a bit different from today’s sphere of Library & Information technology, especially in relation to academia. But some readers might enjoy a trip back in time. In celebration of blogjune, this is my very first blog!
My earliest recollection of libraries is of my parents taking us to our local Council Library. It was a pint-sized orange-lit wonderland full of choice. The lady Librarian was stern and cranky (I’m so sorry but it’s true!) and it was well-known throughout our district not to incur her wrath. Nevertheless my memories are very happy ones of poring over the shelves and labouring over which precious tomes to select to borrow for the next two weeks.
If we were lucky, we were given time outside the Library to play afterwards, dashing around in the inky shadows under the ancient Moreton Bay fig trees and running along the wooden benches. Sometimes in the back street behind the Library, the Salvation Army Band would play and our parents would take us there to listen. Resplendent in their uniforms and trumpeting out their songs of praise, they would occupy a street corner and inspire the crowd.
But my greatest pleasures came from visiting the Library at my primary school. One day it simply sprang up into existence, nestled haphazardly inside a spare classroom. The full tally of books there must have been quite small but there were more than enough to slake my thirst, especially the whole series of Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. I couldn’t believe we got to do something as fun as visiting the Library, and in school time too. My friends and I sometimes spent our lunch-hours there as well. My best friend was a mad fan of Biggles.
My high-school Library was another matter, huge by my previous standards and housed in a dedicated new brick building. Untold mysteries lurked within its walls, such as the lumbering set of Britannica, the massive Medical Dictionary and the astonishing Van Nostrand’s Encyclopaedia, which dominated the Reference shelves. I’d always had a passion for reading and for writing and for the utter power of words, but in the late Sixties and early Seventies, this lust was further fuelled by the excitement of discovering on my School Library shelves such gems as Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye and My Darling, My Hamburger (before some of them were removed – I seem to recall there was a lot of outraged censorship going on back then, on a provincial level). I also ransacked the School Library and my local Council Library for any Judy Blume novels, Ruth Park or Ursula Le Guinn, Robert Heinlein or Kurt Vonnegut.
The world of books was a true paradise to me and when, in my twenties, I actually worked at the Council Libraries myself, the real treasures of a library were revealed to me – the delight of sharing the joys of reading with others, children and adults alike, and the heartening sense of community and equality the libraries offered to all who entered their doors.
This was when my love of writing and of words was really cemented.
